Author's Note:
I'm giving myself three weeks to post my next chapter, instead of two. It'll be out by Wednesday, February 5th. I need the time to work on organizing my notes, so the rest of my writing process can go more smoothly.
All I can say is, I'd been feeling kind of stuck due to the pressure of not feeling like I had time to deal with my notes properly. Then, as soon as I decided to take this extra week, I had a vivid mental image of suddenly getting to open out a sewing project onto a table that was big enough to really lay it out.
Stylist imagery for the win! :) And right after that, I started feeling a lot more unblocked and now I'm able to write more freely again, and faster. So that's how I know I'm doing the right thing here.
I'd also like to take this chance to thank my reviewers! You're all awesome!
And I'd like to personally respond to my loyal anonymous reviewer, Lya200 (since I can't answer you in a private message). Thanks, Lya! :) Your comments mean just as much to me as anyone else's. Thanks for taking the time to read my chapters and leave me reviews, again and again!
I really appreciate your compliment on my imagery in Chapter 3. That's something I'm very proud of, and I'm glad to know you liked it.
And yes, like you said in your latest review, Cinna does hurt very badly in this part of my fanfic. It makes me sad to write it! But it'll be okay. He's going to make it. And by the end of the story, he's going to be very, very happy. I promise, it'll all be worth it!
The Peacekeeper still isn't here. I guess he isn't planning to come back today at all.
He must really be as tired of me as he said.
He can't be anywhere near as tired of all this as I am, though. It's so exhausting. His assistants are still hurting me. I've been in so much pain for so many hours!
And it feels like it's never going to stop. Just like yesterday. Just like the day before. I'm starting to feel like nothing could be longer than one of these interminable days.
Just hang in there, Cinna! I tell myself. It's got to be over soon. There's no way this day can last too much longer!
But they just keep hurting me. Maybe this day is feeling so very long because I'm so tired from the pain of that injection. Maybe just because I was already so worn out from yesterday. I just don't know. All I know is that I'm so very tired...
Finally, when I've almost forgotten there's even such a thing to hope for, this awful day comes grinding to an end. My torturers lift their weapons away from my injured flesh and set them back into the little drawer.
The sudden lack of pain is almost devastating in its severity. I try to relax, but I can't. I'm so exhausted, and my body keeps tensing up as I remember the awful flaming pain from that injection the Peacekeeper gave me earlier.
My mind is racing. I can't believe how long this day took! I can't believe how much agony I've felt. How much pain I'm still feeling, even though they're not torturing me any more, just from my wounds. And just from my memories of this morning's unbelievable agony, even though it hasn't really left any lasting physical pain behind it.
And I can't believe how scared I am of facing tomorrow.
I've been fighting hard for the past hour, just trying to get through until finally, finally, this day would end. It's always hardest at the end of the day. I'm always so tired by then, so tense and tired from the effort of fighting to keep silent through the pain all day long. All I want is to reach that moment when the agony finally stops for a while. When they put away their weapons. When they leave the room and close the door, leaving me in cool, quiet, restful darkness for the night. Letting me, in spite of my pain, in spite of my fear, finally rest and try to prepare myself for the next terrifying day.
But it turns out that's not going to happen right now.
"Hello again, Cinna," the Peacekeeper says as he walks back into the room. I hear him, as always, before I see him. His footsteps travel slowly toward me until he moves into view.
This isn't right, I think in confusion. He isn't supposed to be back. Not yet. Not tonight. Not until tomorrow!
But he is. He nods to his assistants, taking the drawer of horrors from them, and steps calmly up to stand by my right side. He stands there patiently while his assistants take care of my body.
I look at him, my head turning sideways on the hard table, and I don't think there's any way I'm keeping the fear and confusion from showing all over my face.
The other men finish their tasks and quietly walk away. I hear them leaving. I hear the door closing.
But the Peacekeeper is still here. And he's still holding those weapons.
He doesn't offer me an explanation. He just looks at me, and I can see his eyes absorbing all the fear he must be seeing in my trapped, exhausted face. Without a word, he selects a weapon and holds it up. I recognize the jagged knife he used to hurt me the first day I was here.
I shiver and fight hard to keep from flinching. The whole thing is just so nightmarish.
Maybe that's because I'm so tired I can feel my mind hovering on the edge of a fearful dream already.
I wondered, earlier today, why the Peacekeeper left so early. Why he left me in the hands of his companions, for hours. He'd never done that before.
Now I know why he did it today. It must have been so he could go home and sleep. So he could come back tonight.
Because he's here now. And he's starting to hurt me again.
I'm terrified. I'm so exhausted that my heart is pounding. And I still can't really make sense of what's going on. Or I don't want to. I don't want to accept that I'm facing something so frightening.
But finally the full horror of what the Peacekeeper is doing here dawns on me. I can't keep from facing it anymore.
Because I'm realizing he's not just torturing me later and later into the night. Not with the focused expression he's wearing.
No...
He and his assistants have carefully planned something worse than that.
They're taking me thirty-six hours without a break.
How in the world am I going to survive?
That question just keeps getting larger in my mind for the next several hours. It's getting harder and harder to fight this. My breathing is very uneven. I keep gasping in air, fighting not to make a sound. He's doing things to me that are more and more painful, and the worst spikes of pain come without warning. It's got me on edge and so frightened that I could almost scream just from the fear.
Only I don't. I'm Cinna. I never show my emotions when I don't want to. That's just how I do things.
I can't stop myself from feeling them, though. And I'm feeling this pain and fear and dizzy exhaustion so strongly that I feel like it might shake me apart.
I need to be asleep so desperately. I'm beyond tired. My brain hurts just from being awake. But my pain won't let me sleep.
He won't let me sleep.
I think of Katniss. I have to make it through this for her. That thought is perfectly clear even in the middle of my exhaustion. Even through the confusion that's starting to cloud all my other thoughts.
I can't let them break me. I can't let them do who knows what to her with the sound of my voice.
I can't let them send her a screaming, terrified Cinna jabberjay... and then show her that it was real so she'll have to think all the rest were too...
The Peacekeeper's men come back hours later. Is it morning? It must be. That's the only reason they'd be bringing me the water and the bedpan and everything.
They don't even try to feed me. I guess they know I'd never be able to keep down the gruel when I'm this panicked and exhausted and in this much pain. I barely even manage to get the water down, even though I'm so desperately thirsty. And I'm shaking so hard that the men have to hold my head as well as the straw, or I wouldn't even be able to drink it.
At least the Peacekeeper has stopped hurting me for a minute, to let them take care of me. But as soon as they're done with their tasks, the prep team -
No!
They are not a prep team.
These cruel, vicious men get out weapons and start right in on hurting me themselves. And the Peacekeeper starts torturing me again too.
I'm so tired! How am I going to handle this? My breathing is ragged. I'm fighting so hard not to cry out. I feel like a little child, in so much pain... I'm scared and I just hurt. How am I going to handle this? I feel so very broken -
There is a difference, I decide firmly in the middle of my shaking mind, between feeling broken and being broken.
And I'm not broken. Not yet.
No! I tell myself even more fiercely. Not ever!
Once again, I remember my imagery of the fabric that no one could tear. The thin, dark green satin with the high tensile strength.
Maybe this can help me again now!
I saw something like that in person once. It was a demonstration in one of my classes at stylist college. But I never imagined what it might feel like to actually be that fabric, until I came here and decided to use that imagery to help me survive this torture.
Of course, inevitably, the fabric did finally tear in half. But I'm determined that won't happen to me.
It can't, I tell myself. Not as long as I'm still hanging on.
And not as long as I am letting myself see all this as inspiration.
I'm letting myself feel this pain and I'm imagining what I might do with it.
That's right. That's what I decided to do.
Not ignoring it, not trying to block it. Letting myself feel it. Just letting myself take it all in. This whole amazingly vivid experience. All the pain, and all the violently intense images of all the injuries they're doing to my body.
It's still amazing how much less painful anything is when I focus on it visually this way. Even when I'm this tired. When I'm looking at my wounds this way, my mind tends to lose track of actually feeling the pain quite as much. It's so interesting. I'm not sure why it works, but it's very, very helpful.
But I'm still barely managing to keep from crying, and I still feel like such a very little child.
I just have to hang on! I tell myself. Keep going! Just keep fighting!
I'm completely terrified now. I'm dizzy. I hurt unimaginably, not only from the torture but from the sheer strain of still being awake. Now it's evening again - it has to be! - and there's no way I can take another minute.
Only there's been no way I could take another minute for the past several hours. And I'm still here. I still... haven't... broken.
Now they're putting the weapons back in the drawer again. I'm terrified because this is what happened last night. Will they do the same thing again tonight? Will they keep torturing me and torturing me, endlessly, until I can't stay rational anymore and my mind snaps and I start screaming like a howling animal?
Apparently not, at least for now. They really do put everything away. The assistants take care of my body, as usual. Then they really do leave.
Last of all, the hard-eyed Peacekeeper follows his men to the door.
Then, at last, he switches off the light. "Good night, Cinna," he says just like he did the first night I was here. And then, just before he leaves, the most awful threat he could possibly have made at this moment.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Finally, finally, I'm in darkness. It's such a relief that I'm shaking harder than ever inside.
It's over! I keep thinking. They really stopped hurting me!
I'm shaking. I have to get some rest. I need to sleep if I can. But how can I? I'm so unbalanced from the horror of the days... and night... I've just been through. My thoughts are rattled.
To make things worse, Katniss must still be in the arena right now.
Unless she's already died! I think in even worse horror.
And suddenly I'm feeling absolutely terrified for Katniss.
I can't ignore that she's in the arena anymore. I don't know how I've been managing not to think about it for this long. But suddenly I'm overcome with fear for her.
What is happening to her? Are they attacking her with the jabberjays again? What other hideous abuses have the Gamemakers unleashed on her? How many people has she had to kill so far?
Is she even still alive?
No! I won't let myself think that way. Katniss is a survivor. She'll fight, and she'll make it.
And so will I! I'm going to make it too, I decide fiercely. If Katniss can make it through, there's no reason I can't! If she's surviving now, then so can I.
I'm going to be just as strong as my Girl on Fire.
Meaning that the first thing I have to do... is go to sleep.
It's amazing that this should even be an issue, when I'm so tired. I should be asleep already, without having to think about it. I shouldn't even be able to stay awake if I tried! But when I've already been awake so long, and when I'm so afraid and still in so much pain...
My heart is pounding so hard it's painful in itself. My skin is cold and damp with sweat. I'm shaking so hard, and I'm so terrified. There's no way I can sleep. There's no way...
I'm caught between terror and exhaustion all night long. I keep falling asleep, then waking up with my heart racing, having to cut myself off from screaming. Each time, I barely make it. It's so hard to hold on to my rational determination when I'm so very much barely awake.
Every time I wake up, I'd be bolting upright if I wasn't held down by the cuffs and the hard plastic strap. There's going to be a long, flat bruise across my shoulders and my chest, hours before morning. I think my wrists are already bleeding.
Morning finally comes, and it's every bit as bad as I feared. I'm still exhausted. I'm still in so much pain from the incredible tension of the last two days that I can barely think. My body keeps clenching and spasming with the awful tightness of my muscles.
When the Peacekeeper gets out his latest weapon and sets it against the skin of my chest, the first touch has me flinching away in sheer physical agony just from the contact itself.
Then he starts actually torturing me.
I bite down hard, clenching my teeth against a scream. There's no thought of sending any of this into my creations. There's no thought of using this incredible pain to fuel my imagination...
Only there is. I'm thinking it now.
I wouldn't have thought I could possibly be calm at a time like this. Somehow, all at once, I am.
This is only one more part of my experience, I think, impossibly quiet in the center of a sea of seething pain. This is just another part of my inspiration. I'm okay. I can handle this.
And what beautiful colors...
I'm feeling decidedly dreamlike now as I let my eyes look at the new wound my torturer is causing me, a wound on top of a wound, surrounded by bruises. The red blood is flowing slowly, smoothly, from the cut he's slowly making in my skin. It's spreading unevenly, washing across the other colors, a fall of translucent red silk over a patterned shirt of heavier cloth...
Of course this feels like a dream. My mind needs a dream so badly that it's letting me have one, even though I'm awake and feeling all this pain.
It's so interesting because my mind is actually protecting me. I thought it would be so much harder to deal with everything when I'm this tired, but instead, it's bringing me a strange kind of peace.
Maybe they made a mistake by keeping me awake so long.
I'm feeling so very calm now. This is good. I know what's going on and I'm feeling prepared to face it.
They're going to keep torturing me all day long. I can't let them get me to cry out. They want to use that to hurt Katniss, and I won't let them.
They also want me to tell them about the rebellion. I'm not going to do that either. I'm not going to give them any names, or any plans, or anything they can use against my friends.
It's so completely simple. It's like one of my designs.
It is one of my designs. The design of my resistance.
I've got this.
No matter what they do to me.
And these colors are still so beautiful...
It does get harder as the day goes on. Still, I find I'm able to sort of float through on a haze of half-dreaming pain.
Everything still hurts terribly, but I'm somehow only sort of feeling it. It's like I'm not quite here or something. Or like I'm feeling it through a thick, heavy curtain. And everything looks even more vivid than I feel like it really should. All the colors are almost jarringly bright.
Nothing seems quite real...
It all feels like a dream.
I wonder if this is what it feels like to be given morphling?
The next day, it turns out, is another story.
They've left me alone for two nights now, only torturing me during the daytime. I've gotten enough sleep to physically and mentally recover from my bizarre all-nighter, for the most part. Not enough to really feel okay. This would be a hard day even if they weren't torturing me.
They are torturing me. Of course. And they keep asking me about the rebellion.
Of course.
I'm starting to feel like this might never end.
And for the longest time, it doesn't. The days are starting to blur together now.
A few things are different. Once in a while, my torturers do change something. Like the way they've finally decided to do something about this slow, crushing damage that their table has been doing to my back. I'm lying on some kind of a thin, medicated pad now. I can tell it's medicated, because it stings badly in my already painful sores. It's a familiar pain. It feels just like the long bandage they put on my leg the second day.
Even with that sharp, added pain, it still doesn't hurt as much. It still hurts, but I don't think it's damaging me as badly as just the bare table was. In fact, I think it's actually healing me faster than the pressure is harming me. That stinging medicine must be pretty powerful. So apparently, I'm still at least worth some money to them. Money, and the effort of lifting me up and sliding a new one of these things under my wounded back every evening.
How very encouraging.
Actually, in a way, it is. They don't want me to get some horrible infection. They still don't want me to die. And if they don't want me to die, then that's a good sign.
Because I don't want to die, either. Even though it's for some very different reasons.
I think this might be the one thing in the world that they and I could agree on.
No one here wants me to die. At least not yet. And in my case, not ever. I'm still absolutely determined to survive, no matter what.
Even though my life is getting very, very painful.
I'm caught for days in the same routine of torture, questions, fitful sleep, the torturer's prep team -
Not... the... 'prep team!'
- the torturer's assistants cursorily caring for my body, more torture...
They're starting to put some kind of medicine on my wrists now, too, when they care for me. Squeezing it out of a little tube with a tiny silver nozzle. Letting it work in between my damaged skin and the cuffs.
It helps a little. At least it feels soothing, and my wrists don't hurt as much afterward, for a while. It must be healing my skin somewhat. Like the pads they're putting under my back, though for some reason the medicine they're using on my wrists isn't painful.
I guess they don't want these injuries to get too bad.
The injuries that are caused by my attempts to fight the pain they're inflicting on me.
They could just stop. They could stop torturing me. They could let me go. Then my wrists and my back wouldn't be injured at all. Not to mention the rest of me. My whole body could heal from all the damage they're doing to me.
But that isn't how their minds work.
I guess that's one more part of why I'm not a torturer - and they are. I just can't understand all this. And I don't want to.
The same cycle goes on for so long that it's getting hard to see the days as being any different from each other. I'm losing track of how many days have gone by, but it's got to have been weeks by now.
It's starting to feel like I'm trapped watching reruns of my own life.
No. Living reruns of my own life.
Because I'm not just watching. I'm feeling every second of the pain.
It's absolutely endless.
And there are always, always the questions. The same awful questions.
"Tell us what you know, Cinna."
"Who were you working with, Cinna?"
"What is the rebellion planning now, Cinna?"
And the unspoken question behind the questions, the one they really mean when they keep asking me all these things over and over again:
"Who are your friends, Cinna? Who can we hurt instead of you, Cinna?"
Always and always, I give them the same answer.
"No one. I wasn't working with anyone."
And behind my words:
"You can't hurt anyone instead of me."
"Only me."
"I don't hurt anyone but myself."